This is one seriously overrated beer. It's really, really bad. Not disappointing, not below par, not "not what I expected," this is a flat out bad beer.

Pours a muddy brown color. Zero head.

Smells like balsamic vinegar aged in oak with an awful metallic and plastic earthiness. Wow. Not like any beer of this style I've had before. Just a wretched mess. The earthy/oak component is not well integrated with the vinegar, malt base, and I have no idea what the metallic aftertaste is. The plastic, almost ... chemical ... flavor is offputting.

Tough to finish even half a bottle. Completely flat. For a beer with this low of an ABV and a lighter, more moderate mouthfeel, unforgivable.

S - What is this, salad dressing? Huge balsamic vinegar with some sweet caramel and fruit. This isn't promising at all.

T - The only thing that would taste more like drinking straight balsamic vinegar than this is actually drinking straight balsamic vinegar. This can't possibly be what anyone was going for. The sweetness from the fruit and sugar/caramel actually makes it kind of sickly tasting and worse.

M - Not really any carbonation, medium bodied. This is not helping the beer.

O - This was horrible and hard to drink. Bad bottles? Bad batch? Whatever it is, I'm going to use a taster to screen all bottles of this for me from now on, as I have no desire to be subjected to this again.

Chilled bottle into a glass. Shared by alfrantzell, courtesy of ShogoKawada. Thanks men.

A: Pours a clear maroon body.

S: Vinegar (strong), brown sugar (mild), cherries, cinnamon.

T: A one-note flavor of vinegar dominates, with mild sweetness bringing up the rear, as truckers say. In the exhalation I get a note of cherries and something spicy, which I think is cinnamon but don't care to find out.

M: Very thin, watery, unsatisfying. Falls off the tongue.

O: I really don't like Struise, and this is another great example why. Unremarkable, boring... bleh.

Pours a slightly opaque reddish color with some almost brown hues. No head or lacing.

Pretty much smells like easter egg dye. Acidic and lactic with a vinegary burn. Some light cherry fruit flavor and oak, I suppose.

Sour and acidic up front. Vinegar and nail polish remover pretty much wreck the profile. There's a few notes of cherry, raisin, and dates, but its tough to get past the vinegar. Lingers on the tongue for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Thin, flat, and tepid on the tongue. Lingering acidic vinegar ruined my palate for at least an hour after this. Apparently there's some variation between vintages, but this one was awful. Avoid.

Tasted like malt vinegar syrup over-aged in fresh oak. For real. Decent and promising burgundy tone in the glass, but a faint whiff of sourness in the nose that leaves me slightly unnerved...

Pretty damn weak. Too sour; too vinegar, not enough "funk" in those guitars to make these that coool 70s sound. Really just rather amateurish, imho.

Biggest flaw actually is the complete lack of carbonation. If you make cask-style ale, you best be cuttin back on the residual sugars. Otherwise, you're basically drinking a 12 oz. bottle of malt schnapps.

Overhyped beer, mostly due to its lack of availability (which is typical, imho). I'll take a ubiquitous Sierra Nevada Pale Ale over this ANYDAY.

Poured into a tulip. Best before date of 27/04/2016. Big thanks to SteveFinny for this.

3.0 A: Pours a completely still brownish black color.

2.0 S: Reeks of balsalmic vinegar and tart cherries. Deeply acetic and powerful. Moderate acetone and mild soy sauce. Molasses and a good bit of vinousness. The more you smell it, the more it grows on you. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, but I could do without the acetone.

2.5 T: The taste is just as forceful as the nose. This starts out with a marriage between the balsalmic vinegar and the acetone. Cherries follow next. Tobacco and soy sauce after that. Molasses, vinous grape, and a bit of oak.

2.0 M: Medium body. Almost no carbonation. Almost slick. Can't say this is very smooth.

2.5 D: This is wholely unrefined. I'm okay with the sourness and the balsalmic flavors. Hell, sometimes I'll pour a quarter ounce of balsalmic vinegar into a snifter just to sip on. But, the acetone is really offputting. I guess a few too many bug species got in there. This would be a lot better if a few things were different, but such it is as it is. Super complex and powerful, but just not that good.

A vigorous pour into my Dogfish Head Signature glass produced no head or bubbles. The color can best be descibed as "flat Coke". I can appeciate a beer that has no head or carbonation, but the flavor and aroma better be good.

Right off the bat I pick up a strong balsamic vinegar aroma. This is an aroma I really enjoy, so I had high hopes. With a bit more time, I also pick up some dried fruit, some spices, but no sweetness to speak of.

There is a bit of a tartness to this, but once the dominant flavor of metal kicks in, I cannot pick up anything else. I let this one sit for awhile hoping this would go away, but that was not the case. Drink after drink all I could get was some funked up metal taste that seemed to linger for far too long.

Dispite the lack of carbonation, there was a fair amount of body to this beer. I would call it medium body.

Overall, this is not the beer for me. I would have loved a mouth puckering taste that was reminiscent in the aroma, but all I got was metal. It reminded me of when I was a kid and had a mouth full of pennies. Only this time, I didn't get any money after the experience.

Got this one at the schoolhouse a while back. Not sure about the style, but know I love the brewery. Let's give 'er a go.

From a bottle into my Struise glass. Vintage: 2008

APPEARANCE: Pours a bubbly little head. Basically flat. Tan colored bubbles and a light wisp eventually forms. Sienna brown body with no carbonation evident. A slight ring remains but leaves no lacing down the glass.

SMELL: Lots of raspberries, some cherries, with a light touch of vinegar and acidic stuff in the background. Some definite grape juice in there as well. Quite fruity with a vinegary base.

TASTE: Follows the nose. Some red fruits, like raspberries and cherries up front, with a definite acidic vinegar flavor at the swallow. Grape juice comes out as well, and some notes of sweet candy sugar. Medium aftertaste is sour, acidic, with some nice red fruits and grape juice through it all. I'm honestly not sure if I love or hate this.

PALATE: Fuller body, but almost completely flat. A touch of carbonation keeps it from feeling like juice, but it's not far off. Goes down fine and finishes rather sticky. Disappointing here.

OVERALL: Like I said above, I'm not sure if I love this or hate it. It's probably somewhere in between. It's flavorful, interesting, and complex enough to make it enjoayable, but I'm not sure if this is really my style. In any case, the carbonation needs to be figured out, as this is a little too flat even for this style. Either way, this is a quality beer by a quality brewer, so if you're a fan of the style, this will probably be your thing.

From a 33cl bottle. Pours a turbid deep brown/black with the tiniest wisp of a head. Nose is really heavy on various types of vinegar. Grape must and wet earth creep out. A nice musty leather, tobacco element. Boozy and a bit thin in the mouth with a major vinegar burn at the finish. Just not into this. It has some deep complexities going on, but that vinegar is over the top. I don't care if it's even to style or not. I love sour beers and I love many Oud Bruins, but not this.

I've learned since that a run of these bottles were apparently pretty bad. That's the batch I got, not sure where this went wrong, but it was way off.

330cl bottle direct from Struise, into a snifter. 2008 vintage. Part of a personal high-end beer tasting.

A - The pour is a clouded, reddish-brown, with no head whatsoever. Looking like another flat beer for me -- this is my third in a row today. *sigh*

S - Balsamic vinegar, tart cherry, and acetic acid. Something tells me that my tummy is not going to be happy later. It's nice enough, though, and is good for a oude bruin.

T - Right away I feel like it's got as much malt vinegar as balsamic. The cherry is not as bright as the nose made me think, but it's fairly strong on the finish. Very little apparent alcohol considering it's 8%. One gripe is that there's maybe a little acetone -- not as much as the Vuja De bottle that I had, but enough that it's there. Without that it'd be slightly above average, but it's going to lose a bit point-wise for it.

M - The lack of carbonation is killing me here. It's not completely flat, but there's VERY little going on, and it absolutely kills the feel in this style. It's crying out for some bubbles.

O - I'm not all that happy about this one. I was really looking forward to it, but I really had to struggle to get through the (small, expensive) bottle. The flavors just aren't good enough to overcome the lack of carbonation.

Big thanks to ShogoKawada for just giving me this beer. It's been a long time want.

2008, poured into the equally as wanted and generously free Fantome tulip (thanks again Shogo!)

AppearanceAt first I feared that this bottle was flat. As I poured, only loose air bubbles formed, so I adjusted my pour and still didn't achieve a head. Then, slowly and quite delayed, carbonation fizzled up from within the dark plum colored beer. Almost like a nitro pour. It soon fades, leaving the beer looking flat. I do, at least, enjoy the deep color of this beer.

AromaNice notes of booze soaked cherries. It sort of reminds me of a much less potent batch of cherry jungle juice. Some darker notes begin to come out, such as chocolate and lots of oak. The oak is both funky and dank. There is a spike of sharp, but clean alcohol.

TasteNot incredibly sour, but there is a fair amount of acidity. There is an intensely tannic quality here. Its like someone threw sour cherry skins, sour plum skins, sour grapes and oak all into a blender. It really takes some time to adjust to. Its aggressively tannic. There are flashes of weird metallic and vodka notes, but the flavor profile is pretty enjoyable when those are not being picked up.

MouthfeelExtremely low on carbonation, but its by no means flat. The body is quite full, causing the beer to fall lethargically on the palate. Its slick, with only a slightly dry finish.

OverallWoah, this stuff is weird. I'm not sure that this one is for me. But I would wager that this is closer to a real Oud Bruin than some of the miscategorized brown American wilds. The beer is heavy on the palate, with its full body and low carbonation. It also has some very unusual flavors and aromas.